


To Make a Beginning

by potentiality_26



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: First Kiss, Harry Lives, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Misunderstandings, New Year's Eve, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 05:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5615929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>After he got her and all the other VIPs who had told Valentine that he could go to hell out of that bunker, Eggsy had kept in touch with Tilde. It had been relatively clear from the beginning, given what had already happened- and not happened- between them, that their future relations would never have been of the romantic variety, not even if Harry hadn’t turned out to be alive.</i>
</p><p><i>But Harry</i> had <i>turned out to be alive, and Tilde’s advice on that subject had always been to snap Harry up as soon as possible.</i></p><p>Villains are thwarted, a princess rescues Eggsy more than the other way around, and Harry is a bit difficult- so probably a pretty average New Year's Eve, all things considered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Make a Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Happy belated New Year everyone! This fills the bodyguards square for my H/C bingo. The title comes from T.S. Eliot apparently: “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” I found that searching New Year's quote compilations (as one does) and liked it. 
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

“Technically I was supposed to be protecting you,” Eggsy pointed out, not for the first time.

“Yes,” Tilde agreed, also not for the first time. “And technically I was the one wearing the bulletproof jacket, so in the end I think that everything went just as it should have gone.”

Eggsy had already learned that there was no arguing with Tilde on most subjects even on a good day, and- since she was now developing a sizable impact bruise where Eggsy’s jacket had indeed stopped a bullet- Eggsy thought it was safe to assume that today was _not_ a good day. “I was distracted,” he said, not sure even as he said it just why he was so desperate for blame on the subject.

“But then you caught the gunman quite handily and now I have survived yet another attempt on my life.”

He noticed that she didn’t try to argue that he hadn’t been distracted, which was only reasonable. He hadn’t been horribly so- just enough to slow him down a bit, just enough to make him miss what was right in front of him for a fraction of a second too long. He had been thinking about Harry, of course- Harry in the field for the first time since the church. Lancelot had uncovered a plot by certain insurgents- who preferred to call themselves visionaries, of course- who had decided that the part of V-Day where dozens of world leaders got their heads blown up had actually been fantastic, and accordingly intended to finish off all of the ones who had survived the incident. Apparently they had also decided that it would be poetic to do this on New Year's Eve. The various Kingsman agents had been spread very thin trying to protect them all, bringing Harry- their new Arthur- out from behind his desk and into the action for the first time in a long time.

Since Harry had been made Arthur Eggsy had taken it upon himself to do whatever needed doing for him- such that the others joked that he should have been codenamed Excalibur (or even Guinevere, in some cases) rather than Galahad- and he hadn’t liked being separated from Harry but he hadn’t been given much choice. Merlin had assigned Eggsy to Tilde because of their… history, and Harry to Queen Elizabeth for much the same reason- though their previous relationship had assumedly been of a rather different flavor than the one Eggsy had with Tilde.

So Eggsy had been worried about Harry- not so worried that he couldn’t think, not so worried that he hadn’t done his job in the end, but worried enough to make that one mistake. Since the incident itself Eggsy had had a chat with the gunman to confirm that he was alone; Tilde had helped. With her evening dress rumpled and Eggsy’s jacket thrown on over it, her face flushed and her hair a mess, he wouldn’t have expected her to come across as particularly fearsome, but she was still the same woman who had called Valentine crazy to his face, even when it seemed like he might have her killed for it, and when she made threats anyone with half a brain listened. The gunman was in custody now and everything was essentially fine, but the moment the gun had been fired kept replaying in Eggsy’s mind.

What if Tilde hadn’t gotten cold in her evening dress? What if he hadn’t given her his jacket? What if his mind had wandered for _more_ than that fraction of a second? What if Tilde hadn’t gotten the exact duties of a bodyguard all jumbled in her head? One or both of them could have been lying dead right now, and that wasn’t so easy for Eggsy to shake off.

Tilde’s fingers curled around Eggsy’s sleeve, drawing him out of these thoughts. “Go and talk to him,” she said.

Harry was there, now. He had arrived just a few hours after the incident itself, full of assurances that everything in the UK was well in hand. Right at the moment he was standing the middle of the evacuated ballroom, pacifying one of Tilde’s closest advisers- the one she had confided to Eggsy had a bit of a crush on her. Eggsy and Tilde were at the far side of the room, Eggsy hanging uselessly beside her as a doctor fretted over the growing bruise near her rib cage.

“Shouldn’t I-” he started.

“No,” she said firmly. “I am about to be taken upstairs for a more thorough examination and you are not coming with me. Go and talk to him.” She gave Eggsy a push and then winced.

Eggsy decided that he might as well take himself off before he did any more damage.

By the time Eggsy got to Harry the adviser had slipped off to do whatever it was royal advisers did in the wake of something like this and Harry was checking in with Merlin over the glasses. When he saw Eggsy Harry thanked the quartermaster and disconnected, giving Eggsy a somewhat wan smile.

“How’s everyone else?” Eggsy asked.

“All targets are accounted for,” Harry reported. “And everyone’s fine, more or less. Bors has a mild concussion and Gaheris sprained his ankle.”

Eggsy snorted. “Bet no one else had the person they were meant to be protecting jump in front of them.”

“No,” Harry replied, looking pained. It had been a joke, if a weak one, and Harry's reaction made Eggsy finally start to wonder if he might be in real trouble for this. It would explain why Harry seemed so… off. Then again, it had been a long day for everyone and Harry in particular, and Eggsy had given them all a scare, and it was equally possible that that was all there was to it. They were both silent for a moment, then Harry spoke up again: “You should get moving."

“What?" Eggsy blinked. "Why? Where am I going?”

“With her, I would assume.” Harry jerked his chin in Tilde’s direction. She was being wheeled out of the ballroom with a long-suffering look on her face.

“Nah,” Eggsy said. “She’s getting checked out and she don’t want me hanging outside her door like a lost puppy.”

“But after,” Harry said.

“If I show up in her rooms tonight, she’s gonna start throwing pillows at me,” Eggsy reported. He showed Harry the text that Tilde had just sent him to that effect. “See?”

Harry’s lips flattened into a line. Eggsy regarded him in silence for a moment, wondering for the first time if Harry thought that he and Tilde were together or interested in getting together. He supposed there was a certain logic to that, given what Merlin had complained of to everyone who would listen about their initial encounter, and the fact that she had more or less taken a bullet for him just now. The only hole in said logic was that Eggsy was relatively sure he and Harry had been dancing around something for months now, and Eggsy had trouble imagining a world in which Harry Hart thought that he was anybody’s second choice. And of course Eggsy couldn’t afford to be too flippant about it now- because if it looked to Harry like Eggsy had been leading Tilde on, it wouldn’t do much to thaw him. “There's nothing going on between us- me and Tilde, I mean. We’re…” Eggsy trailed off, not actually sure, in that moment, what he and Tilde _were_.

“Just friends?” Harry offered. There was a skeptical cant to his eyebrows and a dullness in his voice, but at least they were talking about it, right?

Eggsy didn’t think there was any ‘just’ about friendship- especially not between two people whose first meeting included the possible end of the world as they knew it _and_ a very graphic sexual proposition. He told Harry so. “Not to mention the hour or so that I spent with my head in her lap crying. About you being dead.”

“Oh,” Harry said at last.

“Oh,” Eggsy agreed. After he got her and all the other VIPs who had told Valentine that he could go to hell out of that bunker, Eggsy had kept in touch with Tilde. It had been relatively clear from the beginning, given what had already happened- and not happened- between them, that their future relations would never have been of the romantic variety, not even if Harry hadn’t turned out to be alive.

But Harry _had_ turned out to be alive, and Tilde’s advice on that subject had always been to snap Harry up as soon as possible. That was probably why she had finally resorted to threats.

Personally, Eggsy hadn’t minded keeping it to gentle touches, mild flirting, and unnecessarily lingering glances for a while- not when everything else in his life at the moment was so good but so crazy and he had assumed that where things were ultimately headed went without saying. But suddenly Eggsy was afraid that it hadn’t gone without saying, not at all, and he was thoroughly sick of that being the case- so though under other circumstances he might have been a little ashamed to admit to the crying bit, he wasn’t just then. Not if it made Harry understand how important to Eggsy he was; how important he had always been.

“Harry,” Eggsy said quietly. Harry was looking at him almost shyly, like he really wanted this to be going where he thought it was but just couldn’t be sure, couldn’t believe it in case he was wrong. _What the fuck, Harry_ , Eggsy thought. If he had known that Harry doubted, things would have been different all this while, but there was nothing to be done about it now. “What time is it?” he asked. From outside the room he could hear the voices of everyone the assassination attempt hadn’t driven away, talking and cheering quietly. It had to be midnight, if not passed already.

“12:05,” Harry told him “Why?”

“Close enough,” Eggsy said, and crossed to Harry. He let his fingers come to rest under Harry’s chin, tipping it up so he could kiss him properly. Before this assignment had come up Eggsy had spent a fair amount of time fantasizing about kissing Harry on New Year’s Eve, and while this wasn’t really how he had expected it to go he would take it. Eggsy kept the kiss simple- relatively chaste and not too long but in his opinion still unambiguous. Harry didn’t kiss him back exactly but he didn’t protest either, and for a moment before Eggsy drew away Harry’s mouth went incredibly soft under his.

When Eggsy did draw away Harry’s eyes were shut. They fluttered open slowly, and for a few moments he just looked at Eggsy, expression very difficult to read. “I’d better check in with Merlin again,” he said, which wasn’t too promising, and he turned away to do exactly that.

The thing was that Eggsy didn’t doubt that Harry was interested, just whether Harry would ever do anything about that interest if left to his own devices. Again, Eggsy hadn’t minded waiting- not for Harry, not if it meant they got to be together in the end- but apparently Harry had seen things a little differently and… well, not for the first time, Eggsy thought that he would give almost anything to know what was going on in Harry’s head.

He watched Harry carefully. It seemed relatively clear from Harry’s expression that nothing terrible had happened, that everyone was safe and well and Merlin was just giving him a general update, so at least everything was all right on that score.

“Yes,” he heard Harry say, voice somewhat tight. “That seems best. Thank you, Merlin.”

“What’s up?” Eggsy asked.

“Merlin says that we’re off the clock and that he doesn’t expect either of us to check in until morning.” Harry took off his glasses, tucking them into his pocket.

“That's... good?” Eggsy said hesitantly.

Harry returned to Eggsy’s side and touched his face, cool fingertips running across his cheekbone briefly before Harry cupped the back of Eggsy's head and closed the remaining distance between them. Harry just teased at Eggsy's lips at first- but when Eggsy let him in, offering more, Harry gave a muffled groan and _took_ \- and once Harry got going it seemed he was as thorough and single-minded a kisser as Eggsy had always imagined he would be.

“Really good,” Eggsy murmured between long tastes of Harry’s mouth. He preferred kissing to talking any day- especially kissing Harry, because he was fucking magnificent- but he thought that having everything out in the open between them was more important, and since he’d already admitted the part about crying on Tilde’s lap he figured he didn’t have much pride left to worry about. “Harry,” he said, nipping gently at Harry’s lips, “you know I’ve had my eye on you, right?”

“I had an inkling,” Harry murmured, and pressed their foreheads together.

“Thank God,” Eggsy said, wrapping his arms around Harry’s broad shoulders. “Then what was all of this here, huh?”

He felt Harry shrug. “Nothing had been said between us and I… I sometimes told myself that that was for the best. And…” Harry sounded faintly sheepish. “Well. She is a princess.”

“Yeah, and she’s fantastic- but she ain’t you."

Harry nodded. His lips twitched upward but something in his eyes was still a bit intense.  "I should tell you..." He stopped.

Eggsy let one of his hands slide from Harry's shoulder to his chest and prodded lightly with one finger. "I'm listening."

"I play for keeps, Eggsy," Harry said, like it was a warning.

"Good," Eggsy said, swallowing hard. "That's what I want." His own voice was unfamiliar and almost painfully earnest, but the way Harry beamed and kissed him again made that all right. He probably wouldn’t have let Harry go after that had his phone not buzzed. He kept one hand on Harry, fingers curling into a fist around Harry's jacket lapel, as he read the text message he had just received. Eggsy smiled even as he felt his cheeks heat. “It’s from Tilde. She wants to know how I like kissing a king.”

Harry tilted his head to one side. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“I’ll explain it later,” Eggsy promised, laughing softly. Right now a new year was just starting and he wanted to begin it kissing Harry some more.

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com/).


End file.
